


Overground (The Rat Without A Maze Remix)

by qwerty



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Gen, Growing Up, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 06:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1594556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwerty/pseuds/qwerty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah might have left the Goblin King, but she never meant to leave the Labyrinth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overground (The Rat Without A Maze Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Balance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/990377) by [Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer). 



Sarah had fought her way though the magical Labyrinth and its sly, sometimes vicious denizens, overcome traps and lies and betrayal, slogged through the Bog of Eternal Stench, and made friends with a dwarf, a tiny fox-terrier knight and his steed, and a great, gentle beast.

And, oh, defied the Goblin King and won back Toby from his clutches. Finding herself home, in her little room and old toys, a boring, sleepy baby and knowing that her father and stepmother would be home soon, as usual, asking about homework and Toby... that had been no kind of triumphant return befitting her accomplishments. It felt foolish to think it, considering that was how she'd lost Toby in the first place, but: _Unfair!_ She was back where she had started in the first place!

Except not completely. Something moved in the mirror, sparking instinctive fear at first, then she saw Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didymus, and knew she already missed them. And when she told them so, they came to her.

And they all came, the goblins, answering her summons, bowing to her will - even the dangerous creatures that had threatened and attempted to beguile her. Like she was their Queen - her will as strong, her kingdom as great as the Goblin King, and beloved by them where he was feared.

For a while, that was enough. She went to school during the days that bled one into another, helped babysit Toby, who was no less a baby and no less annoying for his visit with the goblins, though she took more care with her words, wiser for her adventure, and in the night, when she was finally safely back in her room, she called through the mirror and the goblins came to her.

But Sir Didymus only ever wanted to listen to her tell stories about knights and chivalry, Hoggle was (albeit expectedly) grumpy and unsympathetic to her woes as she complained about her lessons and the other girls who laughed at her fancies and cared only about clothes and boys and the latest celebrity gossip, and Ludo was sweet, but really they didn't have much to talk about either. And the other goblins, that she hadn't liked to begin with, became annoying - the Junk Lady stumping about her room and picking up her things, the dancing, singing hooligans that insisted on throwing their heads around, the small chittering creatures that just kept appearing under things and startling her. If anything, the Goblin King was the only one who didn't wear on her nerves by the simple virtue of not being present.

Day by day, the wonder of having them with her - her secret magical friends - it palled. Grew thin, and weak, and she called to them later, and less often, dismissed them earlier, until she realised one day that she had not spoken to them in weeks, having fallen out of the habit of calling them after having stopped for a while due to summer camp.

Her memories of the Labyrinth, once so vivid and terrifying, had become stale and faded, like a story she had read in a book once rather than something she had lived.

And then she knew she had outgrown them - grown to resent them, even. She had responsibilities; she had a real life that she was failing to adapt to in clinging to her unchanging friends, like Peter Pan, refusing to partake of the real world.

Toby had started pre-school, found friends that he chattered about and wanted to cling to, no longer trailing her about and babbling at her. Her father and stepmother kept trying to talk to her about what she wanted to do. Brave, loyal Merlin grew old and frail, sleepy, spending more time trying to find a warm place to lie in the sun than follow her around. Her teachers sighed at her apparent lack of ambition, because what was being an actress or doctor or lawyer when you had been to the Labyrinth and defied the Goblin King, stolen his power and his servants from him? And her schoolmates, who should have been her peers - they cared nothing for what she had loved, as she cared nothing for what they loved.

It was a rude discovery, to find herself alone and unable to fit in with either humans or goblins.

Even then, she tried. She threw herself with a will into researching possible careers, tried to read the news, current movies and tv shows, pretended to find as much interest in boys as the girls her age did, accepted when Nick from her Bio class asked her to a movie and then took her hand with his clammy ones. She flinched away when he tried to kiss her.

Perhaps boys weren't for her, she thought, desperate, and when Marian in her Chem group smiled at her, she smiled back. In a quiet corner of the library, instead of studying for the exams, they talked about dancing, and Sarah tried to show Marian the half-remembered steps of her dance with the Goblin King. She stepped on Marian's toes and stumbled, bumping her hip painfully into a chair, and laughed with Marian while desperately imagining throwing the chair through the window, breaking the glass and escaping.

Escaping back to that strange, dreamy ballroom where the Goblin King had watched her, and led her in that strange, slow dance round and round under the eyes of masked men and women, making her head spin...

Sarah held it together until Marian had kissed her goodbye and she managed to stumble back to her room, where she threw herself down on the bed, rolling over to stare at the blank, dull ceiling. Was that what the rest of her life would be like?

Nothing chittered under her bed. No shadows flitted from corner to corner. Her mirror on the wall showed her bare room, nothing more, because she had packed away her childish toys when she decided she had to grow up and learn to live. 

"I wish the goblins would take me away," she whispered, and waited for the owl to fly in her window.

**Author's Note:**

> Edenfalling, I love your works and meant to try to remix something more recent, but then I saw your fascinating take on Labyrinth and couldn't resist! Thanks for playing, it was great to go back and read over your stories again. <3 (Though this was meant to be lighthearted when I started, I have no idea what happened.)


End file.
